1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains generally to electrical computers and more particularly to systems and methods for automating the negotiation and generation of a contract.
2. Description of Related Art
Sales contracts are important elements of modern business. Among other characteristics, a modern sales contract typically includes business terms (such as prices, quantities, delivery dates and discounts), legal phrasing, and approvals by the parties. A single large sales contract may be quite complex and require input from diverse groups within a business organization, including a legal department, a business department, and other appropriately authorized personnel. Other parties to the contract may also provide input requiring modification to contract language and terms. Furthermore, large businesses are often drafting, negotiating, and executing multiple contracts with various parties simultaneously. As such, managing the contract flow and approval process for such concurrent contracts presents considerable obstacles and risks to proper contract negotiation and generation. In addition, these difficulties are commonly amplified by time constraints introduced by typical business pressures.
The advent of computer systems and networks has provided some attractive opportunities for computer assistance of contract generation; however, computer systems and networks have also introduced new difficulties and amplified old ones. For example, modern contracts are typically emailed to the various contract parties and their agents for revision, negotiation, and approval. Edits may be made to the electronic document contained in the email and rerouted to the parties for review. Recipients may also print hard copies of such electronic documents for review and editing purposes. Such uncontrolled proliferation of electronic and hard copy contract documents presents version control concerns, unauthorized disclosure risks, unauthorized modification risks, and interruptions in the approval process.
Products have also been introduced to assist a user in drafting contracts. Such products typically provide boilerplate legal phrasing from which a user may select choices of fill-in-the-blank legal clauses. One such product, the Quicken Family Lawyer Deluxe by Intuit, Inc., asks a user a series of context-sensitive questions and combines provisions and terms determined to be appropriate for the answers provided.
These approaches lack significant characteristics desired by a large business seeking to automate the contract generation process. As discussed, a document-based, or e-mail-based, approach present document proliferation risks and approval process delays. Furthermore, products like Quicken Family Lawyer Deluxe do not provide desired workflow management, such as access control, approval coordination, or collaboration features. Therefore, need exists for an automated contract negotiation and generation system providing groupware-like collaboration mechanisms, version control, and workflow management. Moreover, need exists for an automated contract negotiation and generation system capable of applying defined business constraints to expedite the approval process of contracts therein.